Another Short Story
by The Wolf That Got Away
Summary: A cockroach and a rat travel across the Earth. Except the Earth was dead long ago.


**Author's Note : Among the Stellaris community, it is no secret that Sol system can be randomly generated during certain walkthrough, and most of the time Earth ended up being a Tomb World. They say the cockroaches make good vassal race, by the way...**

**-x-x-x-x-x-**

One day, there was a beautiful garden planet in the Sol system.

One day, the planet gave rise to a thriving civilization.

One day, the inhabitants of the planet named it Earth.

One day, the inhabitants called themselves Human.

And then one day, the Humans went extinct.

Why?

Certainly it wasn't because some powerful alien race invaded them. Not to enslave them and definitely not to loot the Earth of its vast resources. Nobody was around to witness why the planet went silent so suddenly.

It was weird. Earth was always so noisy. On one end were people shooting each other for crumbs of food, or a handful of non-renewable energy source, or perhaps a need to leave one's mark in history books. On the other end, people badmouthed each other out of pride, or greed, or the need to label those who were not them as enemies. Earth never stopped being noisy. They enjoyed being noisy.

And then one day, the Humans went silent. No laughter. No crying. Nothing left at all.

One day, a cockroach and a rat skulked among the ruins of what was once a shopping mall. The ground was covered in pale ash. There were open gaps where the doors and windows of the mall used to be.

"Tell me about the human, bug."

"Which story do you want to hear?"

"About this thing they called money."

The bug fell silent. Since when did rats hold interest about Human money? "Okay, fine... I suppose you haven't see those paper things, yes? To be precise, we don't remember why humans loved money. One human group said money must be collected together so people may have a share of them. Another group said money belongs to the rich and powerful people. Not sure what they meant rich and powerful. But in the end, humans wanted more money. They didn't want to gather it in one person, and they didn't want a select group of people to hold all the money. So they killed each other."

The rat looked sad and confused. "What did they use the money for?"

"There were two groups of working human, or so I heard. One makes objects or amenities, and the second group gave services. People with amenities want servitude, but people who could provide them need tools for daily lives. So they created money to barter for stuff."

One day later, the bug and the rat scurried around some complex ruins of buildings, formerly a lavish apartment complex with expensive decorations. The metal frames of the constructs stood like claws from the ground, creaking whenever wind blew through them. No other features were visible, except dead trees littering the base of the ruined buildings.

"Tell me about this place, bug."

The bug rolled his eyes. How come the rat never saw a Human building before, let alone live inside one? "Well, these construct they erected long ago were their domains. Some domains were spread close to the ground like burrows, but others like the one we stand in were made tall and strong like trees. My kin used to travel between the tall domains using small crevices found everywhere in their open chambers. Humans took shelter in their domains like we do under the ground, obviously. But humans love arranging their dwellings with random objects."

The two creatures looked around the premise. There was a dining table with chair around it. All were worn down by the passage of time. Some rectangular device at the back of the room could've been a television or a computer, if only the rust and ash pile didn't hid it from view.

"Some random decor, indeed."

One day later, the bug and the rat explored a vast empty plain littered with broken bones. A lone shoe stood next to a pile of bleached skeletons.

"This is new to me. Rat, why don't you tell me something I don't know?"

"I don't remember anything about this place," said the rat as he approached the abandoned shoe. "Stories my forefathers told us spoke of blinding flashes of light, followed by shaking ground and the coming of a wave so hot and terrible, t burned everything it touched. Then the sky went dark. Plants stopped growing, big creatures dropped dead left and right, and ashes fell from the sky. All those tales ended the same way though; the humans slowly disappear from the Earth altogether. You think this is where it happened?"

"Maybe, but maybe not," the bug answered. The bones did look like they belonged to the Humans once, but whatever occured in the distant past was certainly merciless toward these Humans. They showed no signs of being burned; all were twisted and blackened as the Earth went black with ash and smoke.

"So I guess humans were never the big scary monsters as we thought them to be?"

"Nope. They were never monsters to begin with. They were just like us."

Wanting to explore further, the bug and the rat continued scurrying through the churned Earth, leaving the boneyard behind, just as a spaceship entered the planet's atmosphere and landed where the two creatures were.


End file.
